Michigan

Michigan
is a state in the United States. Its U.S. postal abbreviation is MI
(old style: Mich.). The name is derived from Lake Michigan, which in
turn is believed to come from the Chippewa word meicigama, meaning "great
water."

The state is known
as the birthplace of the automobile industry. However, it also has a
large tourist industry. Destinations like Traverse
City, Mackinac
Island, and the entire Upper Peninsula draw vacationers, hunters,
and nature lovers from all over the U.S. and Canada.
Michigan has the longest
coastline of any state except Alaska
and more recreational boats than any other state.

USS Michigan was
named in honor of the state.

An individual from
Michigan is called a Michigander
or Michiganian. A resident of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (the UP) is
often called a Yooper (and in turn, residents of the lower peninsula
may be jokingly referred to as trolls because they live "below the Mackinac
Bridge".)

Michigan
has 116 lighthouses. The first lighthouses in Michigan
were built between 1818 and 1822. They were built to project light at
night and to serve as a landmark during the day to safely guide the
freighters traveling the Great Lakes.

Michigan
has the most registered boats (over 1 million) of any state in the Union.
Although most famous for its automotive industry, over half of Michigan's
land is forested, much of it quite remote.

State nicknames
include the Wolverine State, Great Lakes State, Mitten State, and
Winter Water Wonderland.

The state motto,
Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice is Latin for "If you seek
a pleasant peninsula, look about you", a paraphrase of a statement
made by British architect Sir Christopher Wren about his influence
on London.

The state stone,
the Petoskey stone (Hexagonaria pericarnata), is composed of fossilized
diatoms from long ago when the middle of the continent was covered
with a shallow sea.

The state gem
chlorastrolite, literally the green star stone, also known as the
Isle Royale greenstone is found on Isle Royale and the Keweenaw.

The state wildflower,
the Dwarf Lake Iris (Iris lacustris), is a federal-listed threatened
species.

The state soil,
Kalkaska Sand, ranges in color from black to yellowish brown, covers
nearly a million acres (4,000 km²) in 29 counties.

History

Once a thriving
lumber capital and supplier of iron and copper minerals, Michigan's
declining natural resources gave way at the turn of the twentieth century.
The birth of the automotive industry with Henry Ford's first plant in
the Highland Park suburb of Detroit,
marked the beginning of a new era in personal transportation that permanently
changed the socio-economic climate of America. Many automotive manufacturing
plants remain, however, Detroit lost its
grandeur after World War II, as automotive companies abandoned huge
industrial parks in the area for the cheaper labor found in Southern
U.S. and offshore plants.

Early European history

1622 Étienne
Brûlé and his fellow explorers from Grenoble, France, were probably
the first white men to see Lake Superior.

1835 First Constitutional
Convention. Stevens T. Mason inaugurated as the first Governor. Stevens
T. Mason started a minor conflict with Ohio
over the city of Toledo,
(now Toledo, Ohio)
known as the Toledo War the same year: Ohio
was awarded Toledo
but Michigan was given
a majority of Michigan's upper peninsula.

1837 Admitted
as a free state into the union (the 26th state), it was admitted with
the slave state of Arkansas

Referendum and
Voter Initiative: Michigan's constitution provides for voter initiative
and referendum (Article II, § 9 [ [1] ] ), defined as "the power to
propose laws and to enact and reject laws, called the initiative,
and the power to approve or reject laws enacted by the legislature,
called the referendum. The power of initiative extends only to laws
which the legislature may enact under this constitution."

Michigan
counties and townships are statutory units of government, meaning that
they have only those powers expressly provided or fairly implied by
state law. Cities and villages are vested with home rule powers, meaning
that they can do almost anything not prohibited by law.

There are two types
of townships in Michigan:
general law and charter. Charter township status was created by the
state legislature in 1947 and grants additional powers and stream-lined
administration in order to provide greater protection against annexation
by a city. As of April 2001, there were 127 charter townships in Michigan.

Geography

Michigan
borders Indiana and Ohio
to the south, and Wisconsin
to the southwest of the Upper Peninsula. Michigan
also borders Minnesota,
Illinois and Ontario
but only on water boundaries in the Great Lakes system. The highest
point is Mount Arvon in the Upper Peninsula at 1979 feet (603 m). The
highest point in the Lower Peninsula is Briar Hill at 1705 feet (520
meters).

The Lower Peninsula
is shaped like a mitten and is 277 miles long from north to south and
195 miles from east to west. The Upper Peninsula (often called simply
"The U.P.") is as big as Connecticut, Delaware,
Massachusetts, and Rhode Island
combined, but has less than 320,000 inhabitants, who are sometimes called
"Yoopers" and whose speech has been heavily influenced by the large
number of Scandinavian and Canadian immigrants who settled the area
during the mining boom of the late 1800's.

These two sections
are connected only by the Mackinac Bridge -- the third longest suspension
bridge in the world. The two peninsulas are surrounded by an extensive
Great Lakes shoreline. Other than Alaska,
Michigan has the longest
shoreline of any state -- 2,242 miles (and another 879 miles if islands
are included). This equals the length of the Atlantic Coast, from Maine
to Florida. The Great Lakes
which touch the two peninsulas of Michigan
are Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. No point
in Michigan is more than
6 miles from an inland lake or more than 85 miles from one of the Great
Lakes, and the state has more than 11,000 inland lakes and more than
36,000 miles of rivers and streams.

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